small ball is an over rated saying in some parts. Remember when we had chuck hayes as our starting centre
Cp3 was on fire with 20 points. The game was not treated like a vacation for 35 year old cp3 for sure. Caught jazz on a bad night. Gobert played Aldridge the night before, the Spurs. Jordan Clarkson was banged up from the night before.
Gordon was a little rusty but that's to be expected. He wasn't quite as explosive going to the basket. Once he gets his legs back under him I think we are going to be a true Juggernaut maybe on both ends. I've been in believe mode since we traded for Covington. The scary thing is that they are just getting started. Give them a a week or two to gel, and let MDA put more of his stamp on this offense, and I think we are in for a hell of a ride. I do wonder what MDA will do with Carroll. BMac had been on fire, but Carroll should be a lot better defensively. That's not an easy call.
I actually think this is a realistic thing to get on a nightly basis. We have 5 guys on the court who can hit the 3 for 48 mins a game. Might be a stretch to say 5 guys when you have russ. But yall get what I mean.
Lakers - (#1 in the West) Celtics - (#3 in the East) Jazz - (former #4 in West) Those aren't slouchy teams. Where's the cake? (GSW was the only bottom feeder)
Jazz are still dazed and scared after the beatdown they received last night. They smell what the Rox are cooking and its giving them indigestion. LOL https://www.sltrib.com/sports/jazz/2020/02/23/jazz-rockets-analysis-by/
Gordon was rusty for sure. But aside from his 50 burger, EGo has not been very good offensively OR defensively all season. MDA needs to ease him back in, no need to play him so many minutes. We will need him 110% soon enough in postseason.
Conley missed the Spurs game. He played pretty well against the Rockets. We aren’t the best team, but your bias doesn’t let you see the whole picture.
https://www.slcdunk.com/2020/2/22/2...ose-tiebreaker-james-harden-russell-westbrook call me crazy but I am not too worried after last game, indeed I would prefer Houston in playoffs. Why? Because small ball won’t work in playoffs. In order for them to win games like this they MUST shoot at least 50% of 3pt. Harden had great shooting night but he has rather often games when he shoots stepback threes 1/12. When he drives to the rim and we close him up he passes the ball to outside shooter, and they shoot them well yesterday but in the games when they are off we will crush them. Even if we shoot threes like we normally do, we would easily won this game. Also I think they will lose most of the games when they rest either Russ or Harden like they lost terribly in Phoenix. What worries me is our lack of aggressivenes in offense. When our guards aren’t aggressive into the rim Houston and every other team doesn’t have to double them up so our shooters can’t get the ball and if our finishing at the rim is lousy as it is we suck. Only JC attacks hard but he obviously lacks passing skills so that doesn’t solve the problem. which is why we need more minutes for Mudiay. He is excellent in attacking the rim and he brings that much-needed athleticism. In defense we still lack good PF and it is huge liability. P. S. Congrats to Quin, he did try to adapt this game and made quite good defensive schemes which is good.
Quin made more adjustments than MDA but MDA made the better adjustments. Teams are going to have to adjust to the Rockets, to stand any chance of winning. My favorite quote from your linked article.
The key to beating the Jazz is playing good defense against them all game long. They will succumb to the pressure and will start making mistakes. Denver is better than them.
fwiw: Hugh Howey, author of WOOL, liked my random stat post. Take a look at who he follows...I'm pretty sure he's a Rockets Fan. @Xerobull
lulz, ZDog actually said exactly what @smoothie_king just did...haha "Why don't you Rockets cut the Jazz some slack? We're coming off a b2b.
Whatever lineup you're talking about, it was a lineup without Harden. Harden was a +10 in first half. Rest of team was -14 in the 5 minutes he sat. No team, yet, has exploited a systemic problem. What we saw today is MDA still trying to figure out the first rotation when Harden sits. Once Harden came back in, his defensive intensity immediately made a difference, and snapped the Rockets out of a 5 minute funk.
